> On Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:38:29 -0500, Noel Maddy wrote:
>
> >Rather than crowing about the non-existent GPL-ing of the Netscape
> >code, wouldn't it behoove us to let Netscape know that there *are*
> >many people who would really love to work on Netscape, but that it
> >depends on the license that they put on it. Let's tell them what
> >kind of a license would encourage us to be involved.
> >
> >[For some ideas, check out
> >http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html]
>
> Considering that the Debian social contract is a utter fatasy from how
> things are actually run in the project, I doubt that is a very good
> example.
>
I'm not making *any* comments about Debian as a project. I'm only
suggesting that a number of the *issues* addressed by the DFSG are also
relevant for the Netscape development license, and should be addressed
somehow in that license.
I could have pointed to http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/categories.html as
another place that addresses a number of the issues, albeit on a more
philosophical level. The only reason I pointed to the DFSG is that it's
a simple list of requirements rather than a more lengthy philosophical
presentation of the issues. Both of these are valid. One shows the
basis for free software. The other shows practical guidelines for free
software. Neither the organizations nor their respective creeds are
gospel to me, but both make me think, and therefore are valuable to me.
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Noel Maddy <nmaddy1@biostat.hfh.edu>